Kick The Candle (Knight Games) (28 page)

I took the distraction as an opportunity to work on my bindings. By bending my knees, a feat only possible by pressing them together to the point of pain, I was able to slide my back down the rough stone and loosen the ropes. If I strained my neck, the tips of my fingers could reach the gag. I yanked it out of my mouth and cast it aside. With a little more contortion, I was able to move one wrist to my mouth. The rope dug into my bloodied skin, but I set my teeth to work.

As I maneuvered the binding, it occurred to me that my years as a bar rat in college actually might pay off. I’d tongue-tied plenty of cherry stems into knots in my day. This was just the opposite, right? Only I wasn’t as drunk or as distracted with whatever fraternity cohort was on the barstool next to me. Still, I had skills. The knot loosened slightly between my incisors.

A growling mass of supernatural rage rolled between the fire and me. I paused momentarily but there was no way Bathory or Kai was paying any attention. Both were bloody to the point of serious injury, even for the undead. She was ghostly white from loss of blood, and he gushed red where she had torn into his front leg.

Victory! The rope loosened enough that I knew I could pull my hand out. Only, now wasn’t the time. An army of undead emerged from the woods, at least thirty vampires, some of whom I recognized from the Mill Wheel. Bathory’s reinforcements swooped down on Kai, ripping him apart, limb from limb. I watched in horror as the nightmare inside emerged from the beast’s body, a smoky black cloud of menace, and pinged around the incompatible undead before racing toward me. The cloud paused as if considering my body, but then plowed into Soleil.

“Get out of her,” I seethed.

“Not a chance,” Soleil said in a tenor version of her voice. “This is the safest place to be. The fae is the only one on this merry-go-round Bathory can’t kill without harming herself.

Soleil was made of sunlight. I guessed ripping her open would be dangerous for a vamp.

Everyone stopped. I flattened on the altar, effectively playing dead.

Bathory glared at Soleil over my stomach. “Smart. Only once I am immortal, Soleil’s talents won’t be able to hurt me.” Bathory staggered back toward the book, weak from the loss of blood.

“My queen,” Naill called, wrestling a bound man forward. “I had them bring this for you from the bar.”

The human looked around forty with a balding head and beer belly. I had a flash of sympathy, then remembered that if he was hanging out at the Mill Wheel, he was likely paying vamps to compel young girls to have sex with him. My sympathy faded.

Bathory gave Naill a small nod, then sank teeth into the man. There was a moan, gurgles, loud swallowing and then a thump as his drained body hit the dirt.

Slowly, painstakingly, I worked my hand free from its binding, hooking my fingers in it to keep it from falling. I did not want to draw attention. Timing was everything.

“Now,” Bathory said, “the cauldron.”

Naill dragged a pot almost as large as he was to her side. “Yes, my lady.”

Oh dear Lord
. If that nugget got his nose any further up her ass, he’d become a permanent part of her backside.

He handed her a silver-hilted dagger. She lifted it in her still bloody hand and strode to my side. Her perfectly arched brow lifted. “Nice knowing you, witch. Too bad about your caretaker. Looks like you won’t be coming back from this one.” With both hands gripping the hilt, she raised the dagger above her head until her upper arms covered her ears, then with one final gaze at my chest, plunged the steel toward my breastbone.

The movement was lightning quick, but so was I. Some part of me, the goddess of the dead part I suppose, knew what she would do before she did it. Rick had said that everything I needed was inside of me and surely he was right, because at that moment, I knew every undead cell in the super standing next to me. I owned what she was. I had knit her out of the ether in some former life.

Releasing the binding, I rolled out from under her falling dagger. She howled an obscenity as the blade hit the stone and not me. I rolled back, flattening the knife under me while bringing my elbow to the side of her head. Three of my limbs were still bound to the table but I used what leverage I could get to throw my entire bodyweight into it, aiming not for her head but through it. She hissed, and fell to the ground.

Quickly, I began working the knot on my other wrist. I wasn’t fast enough. I’d barely loosened it when she popped up next to me. One hand gripped my throat while the other clawed my shirt open.

“There are two ways for me to cut out your heart. Since you’ve taken my knife, we’ll do this the old fashioned way.”

I punched into the side of her head as her nails dug in over my heart. Her grip on my neck was brutal, and the lack of oxygen made my vision swim. I thought I was dead, until a black wind blew over me, knocking Bathory’s hand away. From my supine position, I watched the darkness collect into a familiar vampire.

“Julius!” Bathory growled. “Back off. The book is mine.”

“Over my undead body,” Julius crooned. He brushed a stray tress out of his face and lowered himself, ready to brawl.

I turned my head to see the Mill Wheel vamps close in around the two, but Julius hadn’t come alone. A small army emerged from the darkness. I recognized Gary right away. His nocturnal eyes passed over me but didn’t linger.

“Leave now, Julius, or I will be forced to end you,” Anna said.

Julius laughed. “Give it your best shot.”

They collided in fast-forward, teeth and claws, a tangle of black fog. The other vamps rushed in to help only to be thwarted by the other side. A battle raged around the book and the fire. I watched Naill slowly back away, disappearing into the woods to save his lucky ass.

I began working on my other wrist in earnest. Yes! I’d moved to my ankle when a beast I recognized crept out of the forest. I supposed it could be any werewolf, but the wound in its side and the way it limped toward me told me it was Silas. I jerked back as his weighty paw lifted and swiped for me. Only his aim was purposefully off. The rope binding my ankles split in two. Silas meant to free me.

“Thank you, Silas,” I whispered quickly, then bound off the table and raced for Nightshade.

M
y limbs tingled from the cold and numbness of immobility but I forced them to obey my command. I leaped over the fire and reached for my blade. Nightshade’s hilt slid into my hand with urgency as if she’d been straining to help me. Underneath her blade, the burlap sack rustled. I untied it and freed Poe. “Help Rick down,” I ordered. He nodded once and took to the sky.

A hand landed on my shoulder. I whirled around to face a Mill Wheel vamp. He yanked me into a bear hug. Poor sucker must have been young or stupid. My blade sank into his gut and he exploded into a shower of ash. The other vamps were distracted with the fight, although that wouldn’t last forever. Some were already down for the count, the winners joining in the tussle between Julius and Bathory. It didn’t matter who won that fight. If either were left standing, I’d lose.

What I needed was to get out of there, but I couldn’t leave Rick, Soleil, or the book.
Think!
I noticed Silas then, sniffing Soleil like a dog whose master comes home smelling of another pooch. The nightmare was still inside her, throwing off her scent. “Smart doggy.” I smiled and sprang into action.

Rounding the skirmish, I shuffled to her side. I pressed Nightshade into Soleil’s chest. At the site of the knife, Silas growled at me menacingly. I wondered how much of himself Silas had left when he shifted. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt her.”

“What are you doing?” the tenor voice asked through Soleil’s mouth.

“Banishing you.” Nightshade glowed ever brighter.

The nightmare growled and squirmed against Soleil’s bindings.

“I sentence you to an eternity in hell.” I felt rather than saw the immediate results of my sentence. My blade suctioned to her chest and then slowly, like a worm being drawn from the dirt, the nightmare wrapped around the blade, inch by inch from her chest. Tighter it squeezed until it poofed into nothingness. Soleil took charge of herself.

“Ew. I need a shower,” she said, shivering.

“Just what I had in mind.” I cut her free and pushed her down in the snow.

“Hey!”

“The mud, Soleil! Get it off.” I turned my back to her and faced the brawling vampires. One by one, they noticed me, turning fanged faces in my direction. Even Bathory and Julius recognized the threat, pausing their war and fixing deadly eyes on me. I raised Nightshade. “Any time, Soleil. Could really use some help here.”

“Almost there.” I glanced back to see her rubbing herself with snow, steam filling the space around her.

Glancing back was a big mistake. Bathory barreled into me, thrusting Nightshade above my head. In no time, I was at the bottom of a very large heap of vampires. Fangs ripped into my flesh. I heard Soleil scream and knew she was in the same predicament.

I was battered and bleeding. And then, like a far off memory, Rick’s words came back to me, “An entire universe of magic is at your fingertips.” He was wrong. It wasn’t at my fingertips. It was in the air I was breathing, the night air that surrounded us. Night air that was the source of my power.

The magic slammed into me like a tidal wave when I called, the air thickening to the density of pea soup. The power yanked me from under those vamps with windy tendrils that circled the camp, casting the undead aside in a wintry hurricane. The vamps covered their eyes against the blowing snow.

I used muscle and the mounting storm to reach Soleil. “Come on. You’ve got to flame out now!” I yelled. My power was already draining. The vamps were pushing through the wind to get to us. I couldn’t hold them back forever.

“I can’t,” she yelled. “I tried. The mud’s effect lingers.”

Bathory and Julius reached for me, leaning into the wind and snow. “Sorry, Soleil, but desperate times call for desperate measures.”

“What?”

“I yanked her into my arms. Holding her, screaming, in front of the vamps, I used Nightshade to slice a shallow cut across her chest, shoulder to shoulder. She screamed, but the cut paid off. Sunlight bled from the wound, and then the sun rose. Far from the dingy gray of a winter’s morning, a blazing hot ball of orange swept through the clearing. Vampires burst into flame. Bathory wrapped one dying vamp around her like a coat and fled into the darkness of the woods, Julius right behind her. All of the vamps scattered or burned in the sunlight. When all were gone, I released Soleil, spinning her around to check her wound.

“I am fine!” she said, clutching the cut. “The vampires are gone. We are saved!”

“Sorry I had to do that.”

Gradually, she began to pull her light back inside and heal herself. “It is nothing. I should have thought of it sooner.” Her rose colored lips pressed together.

I nodded, turning in a circle to assess our surroundings in Soleil’s fading light. A few vamps lay burning near the fire. All the others had made for the shelter of darkness. My eyes swept across the trees, looking for any stragglers that thought they might try to return for the
Book of Flesh and Bone
. I raised Nightshade when I saw a man stagger from the woods. Only, it was Silas, human again, naked and shivering. Soleil’s light had broken the moon’s hold on him. She opened her arms and he ran into them. The embrace was desperate, therapeutic. How long had Silas been possessed? Soleil captured? Seeing them together was a beautiful thing.

The romantic scene in front of me brought my eyes up to the cage where Poe was nudging Rick with his head and beak. “He will not wake,” Poe said, worriedly. “I cannot cut him down like this. I might kill him.”

I nodded, sheathing Nightshade and rushing to the place the rope was tied to a nearby tree. I worked the knot free, then carefully lowered the cage. When Rick was at my level, I could see how bad he’d been hurt. His fight with the nekomata had left him with an arm bent at an awkward angle, probably broken, and long shredded wounds, still oozing blood. I swung open the door and he collapsed into my arms. With two fingers I felt for his pulse. Weak. He was barely alive. I positioned myself to feed him my blood, then stopped. Was he human? Did the candle burn all the way down? If it had, my blood could make him sick. I had to find out.

“I need to get him home.” I looked from Soleil to Silas to Poe.

It was Poe that came to my aid. “I can not deny a witch who knows what she wants.” He rolled into a ball, stretched and gathered himself, morphing into a beautiful black stallion.

“I love you, Poe,” I said.

“I know,” he answered.

Calling on my witchy strength, I slid Rick’s body over Poe’s shoulders and pulled myself up behind him.

“Can I trust you two to protect the book?” I looked at Silas and Soleil.

Soleil spread her arms to display the gash across her collarbone. “There is no place safer than with me. I will keep it for you. Save your caretaker.”

I nodded. “Silas, which way to Rick’s cottage?”